26 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



Lucretius, however, who wrote many centuries after the 

 event, is probably in error, for there is little, if any, mag- 

 netic iron ore in the hills of ancient Magnesia the narrow 

 and mountainous strip of land on which rise Mounts Ossa 

 and Pelion, and which formed the most easterly province 

 of Thessaly. The Magnetes as the inhabitants called 

 themselves were, in fact, hemmed in between sea and 

 mountains. The last formed a serviceable barrier against 

 the Thesprotians when this tribe made its irruption into 

 Thessaly; but when, through natural increase of popula- 

 tion, the territory of the Magnetes became too restricted 

 for their needs, there was no alternative but to cross the 

 ^Egean and seek new footholds on the Asiatic continent, 

 where, Pliny says, they founded the city of Magnesia in 

 Ionia. But a later arrival of ^Eolians drove them north- 

 ward, and they established a second city, also named Mag- 

 nesia, beside Mount Sipylus in Lydia. It is conjectured 

 that their national pride caused them to retain the name 

 of their old home for both settlements : a theory which 

 gains support from the fact that the ^olians and lonians, 

 in founding new towns, were accustomed to adopt for them 

 local designations. 1 It is this second Magnesia which is 

 most reasonably supposed to have given its name to the 

 magnet, because of the large deposits of magnetic ore, 

 similar to that found at Elba, which still exist in its 

 vicinity and which were probably the ancient source of 

 supply. The town itself was destroyed by an earthquake 

 in the time of Tiberius. 



If this emigration of the Magnetes ever occurred, it 

 happened before 700 B. C., and possibly before 1000 B. C., 

 the latter being generally regarded as the period when the 

 colonizing movement of the ancient tribes ended ; but, 

 like all such traditions, it is unsafe to accept it as a his- 

 torical fact. Another version of the same story is that the 

 Magnesians settled in both Lydia and Ionia on their re- 

 turn from Troy; still another makes them out, not willing 



Abbott, E. A. : History of Greece, New York, 1888. 



